Does anybody here enjoy taking day trips to big cities for shopping and restaurants?

[MissingAll4Seasons]

While the term "big" is completely subjective, I think the answer is actually in the question: a city is a city, it stands alone with defined borders and it's influence doesn't seep too far outside it's borders; and a metropolis is a metropolis, it usually contains one or more cities and a multitude of towns and neighborhoods between and around them. There aren't too many cities that have millions in population; but several metropolises do. Duluth is a city, it has a beginning and end, there are miles of "smallness" around it. San Angeles (i.e. San Diego - Los Angeles - San Francisco) is a metropolis you can travel from one end to the other without ever actually leaving it or encountering any "smallness" in between the major points.

[jdavid93225]

Originally Posted by MissingAll4Seasons

While the term "big" is completely subjective, I think the answer is actually in the question: a city is a city, it stands alone with defined borders and it's influence doesn't seep too far outside it's borders; and a metropolis is a metropolis, it usually contains one or more cities and a multitude of towns and neighborhoods between and around them. There aren't too many cities that have millions in population; but several metropolises do. Duluth is a city, it has a beginning and end, there are miles of "smallness" around it. San Angeles (i.e. San Diego - Los Angeles - San Francisco) is a metropolis you can travel from one end to the other without ever actually leaving it or encountering any "smallness" in between the major points.

I pretty much agree with you about this, except there is a lot of openness between Los Angeles and San Francisco - not so much between L.A. and San Diego, though.

Los Angeles is definitely a metropolis, since the region includes many cities that would be considered large on their own, such as Long Beach, Santa Monica, Santa Clarita, Pomona, Glendale, Burbank, San Bernardino, Anaheim, and so on.

The San Francisco/Oakland area is another metropolis, as are some of the other large cities in the west such as Phoenix, Denver, Las Vegas, and Salt Lake City.

I once looked at a list of the 100 largest (by population) cities in California, and every one of them was larger than the largest city in Wyoming, by about 30 percent or more. Most of these large cities were part of a larger metropolis. A few, such as Bakersfield and Tulare, are, for the most part, stand alone cities that are not part of a larger metropolis. M4AS has made an important distinction between the two.

With these considerations in mind, I realize that the OP asked about taking trips to the city. For much of rural America, that would not necessarily mean traveling to a metropolis. For instance, Dodge City, Kansas would be a big city to someone from Lakin, Kansas.

[Icy Tea]

We took a day trip to NYC and had a ball. Not shopping, we have plenty of the same stores nearby with lower prices so that made it kind of pointless. Not the ultra high end stores( Tiffanys, etc.) but who has money for that, anyway? But for the museums, and the attractions, it was worth it.

[silverwing]

About the only thing a metro area has to offer that I enjoy is the larger bookstores. Every couple of months we'll hit the city for a day of browsing there. Maybe once a year there is a movie that we want to see on the big screen - like Avatar. Otherwise pfffftt. Traffic, rude people, the stress of noise and big crowds gets on my nerves big time.